I recently read this brilliant article called ‘South Africa and The New World Order' by Leonard Gentle. http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/421.1 I think it provides an excellent big picture perspective on what is going on in the corridors of power, in South Africa and the world.

Later on I read another article ‘On Protest Hotspots and Analytical Blind Spots' by Jane Duncan http://www.sacsis.org.za/site/article/439.1. It offers a sharp focus on the building tension in South Africa. I think the reality of what is going on becomes pretty clear when they are read together.

I think Gentle did a fabulous job of summing up much of the middle class sentiment.

‘South Africans are inclined to moan about so much...the fact that things don't seem to function, the corruption, the crude avarice of the new elite, the poor performance of Bafana Bafana, the crime. Add to this Julius Malema, Jacob Zuma's polygamy and the scandal of the mismanagement of our parastatals and you have a picture that evokes images of imminent collapse for the chattering classes.

From the side of the largely white middle class, there is a deep sense of, "We told you so: blacks can't really run this country!" And almost in response there is a kind of knee-jerk defensiveness from the black middle classes and from patriotic whites, calling on the whiners to leave the country and, in the case of the World Cup, on all patriotic South Africans to rally to the cause to prove that we really are capable of running an excellent World Cup.

Underlying the perceptions of both the racist whites and the defensive blacks is the same set of assumptions. We have much to prove to the world in showing that we really are "world class."  We often hear middle class suburbia moaning that the behaviour of some of our politicians is making us the laughing stock of the world; that tourists will be aghast at this or that aspect of South African life; that our behaviour will drive foreign investors away; and so on and so forth.'

He goes on to describe how corruption is not a South African or even African problem per se...

Except, we are "world class." We're right up there in the premier league with British politicians cooking their parliamentary expenditure claims, the Home Office losing the CD database of citizens' information, the Italian prime minister flaunting his sexual dalliances, the Israeli president charged with rape and all the smart American guys from Enron and WorldCom who lied through their teeth and defrauded millions of people.'

And then makes it clear that South African ‘Big Business' is doing very well: How we have some of the biggest corporations, have set up private hospitals all around the middle east, have loads of natural resources, generally shipped off to China and how in the midst of the biggest economic crisis the world has ever seen we have only cut our interest rates to 7%, have not practised bailouts or quantitative easing (printing more money) or any of the other measures that many of the most advanced (wealthy) economies in the world have had to take.

These facts seem to make a lot of sense as to why the South African delegation were so popular at the ‘World Economic Forum' in Dovos where apparently there were queues to meet the South Africans! And also possibly also why the English Queen made such a big effort to schmooze Jacob Zuma on his recent trip to the UK.

The depth of our corruption is reflected by our behaviour in international politics. My understanding is that Venezuela and Bolivia have some of the most progressive governments in the world and that the World Bank and IMF are not altruistic organisations. (The corruption in the World Bank is most recently reflected in the proposed loan to SA to build new coal fire power stations in the midst of the climate crisis. You can join a protest about that here: http://action.350.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2439)

‘In international politics, countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia have attempted to weaken the power of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Word Bank by building other alliances. Notably, the Bank of the South, a development bank promising low interest loans without the conditionalities of the IMF. What did the Zuma government do after being invited to join the bank in September 2009? It declined the invitation.'

And that goes alongside our dismal performance at the Copenhagen Summit where South Africa betrayed the G77 who were holding firm for a realistic response only to make sneaky side deals with the super powers.

The reason for this corruption becomes clear.

‘This is not about South Africa's GDP or the strength and output of our manufacturing sector.' ‘This is about financialisation: the conversion of capitalism into a system of speculative financial capital and the rise of a few successful behemoths living parasitically off everyone else.'

‘It is about governments making this possible by deregulating investment, freeing up the movement of capital and privatising public services. This is what has happened to South African capitalism over the last 20 years. This is why Pravin Gordhan signalled his intention to relax exchange controls even further in his first medium-term budget speech in 2009. This is why we are only one of five countries with a private central bank. This is why the rand is not only one of the most tradable currencies in the world; it is also one of the strongest. While one million jobs have been lost, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange is once again booming.'

And here is a most shocking fact

‘In 2004, for the first time since WW1, the share of national income of profits overtook that of wages and salaries.'

So we are creating exceptionally rich shareholders, a very small percentage of our population while at the same time paying everyone else less and less and less. Trouble brews, which frankly given the above information is to be expected....

We have been going through an ongoing spate of protest actions in South Africa, mainly to do with service delivery. It has been suggested that South Africa has one of the highest levels of protest action in the world. It seems protest action is not only happening in the cities as reported but also in small towns across the country. Jane Duncan focuses her report on Grahamstown.

‘One of the most enduring grievances is unemployment, and the income deprivation it leads to. The elderly are a rich source of local history on employment patterns. In conversation, a number observed that employment was plentiful twenty years ago.'

‘The availability and quality of work has declined drastically. Another woman spoke about the fact that not even graduates can find work. Her daughter, a graduate, is only able to find jobs for three months at a time, after which she is tossed back into the Grahamstown's vast reserve army of labour.'

As the financialisation increases and more people employed in productive industry lose their jobs, the government's job increasingly becomes one of fobbing off the citizens...

‘It was only in 2009 that a conscious effort was made by the Unemployed People's Movement to organize across wards, in recognition of some residents' allegations that ward committees have become places where community grievances go to die rather than being spaces where problems are aired and resolved.'

 ‘It is difficult not to conclude that Grahamstown is a pressure cooker waiting to blow'

‘Social movements theorists Sydney Tarrow and Donatella Della Porta have analysed how state non-responsiveness radicalises protest action, and prompts a shift in tactics from legal to illegal forms of protest, as protestors conclude that lawful protest will get them nowhere. These are reasonably predictable protest cycles. Simply condemning illegal and violent protest, as the government tends to do, is easy; understanding why it happens is much more difficult.'

So we have two trends happening here, the cultivation of a super rich financial elite and the increasing desperation of hungry people. We have a government that increasingly is showing that it is not going to do anything to help the people. It appears only to have the interests of the financial elite at heart. Is it going to come down to the masses facing off the armed forces controlled by the government? Unless something changes, that seems like a distinct possibility to me.